Presidential Papers, Doc#879 To Charles Erwin Wilson, 17 May 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower
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Doc #880

Document #879; May 17, 1954
To Charles Erwin Wilson
Series: EM, AWF, Administration Series
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XV - The Presidency: The Middle Way
Part V: Maintaining "a united defense"; April 1954 to August 1954
Chapter 10: Losing the war "they could not win"

 

Dear Mr. Secretary:1 It has long been recognized that to assist the Congress in achieving its legislative purposes every Executive Department or Agency must, upon the request of a Congressional Committee, expeditiously furnish information relating to any matter within the jurisdiction of the Committee, with certain historical exceptions--some of which are pointed out in the attached memorandum from the Attorney General.2 This Administration has been and will continue to be diligent in following this principle. However, it is essential to the successful working of our system that the persons entrusted with power in any one of the three great branches of Government shall not encroach upon the authority confided to the others. The ultimate responsibility for the conduct of the Executive Branch rests with the President.

Within this Constitutional framework each branch should cooperate fully with each other for the common good. However, throughout our history the President has withheld information whenever he found that what was sought was confidential or its disclosure would be incompatible with the pubic interest or jeopardize the safety of the Nation.

Because it is essential to efficient and effective administration that employees of the Executive Branch be in a position to be completely candid in advising with each other on official matters, and because it is not in the public interest that any of their conversations or communications, or any documents or reproductions, concerning such advice be disclosed, you will instruct employees of your Department that in all of their appearances before the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Operations regarding the inquiry now before it, they are not to testify to any such conversations or communications or to produce any such documents or reproductions. This principle must be maintained regardless of who would be benefited by such disclosures.

I direct this action so as to maintain the proper separation of powers between the Executive and Legislative Branches of the Government in accordance with my responsibilities and duties under the Constitution. This separation is vital to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power by any branch of the Government.

By this action I am not in any way restricting the testimony of such witnesses as to what occurred regarding any matters where the communication was directly between any of the principals in the controversy within the Executive Branch on the one hand and a member of the Subcommittee or its staff on the other. Sincerely

1 For background on the origins of this letter see no. 874. On this day--at 7:15 a.m.--Eisenhower met for breakfast with his close advisers, who approved the plan to release the letter to the press at 9:00 a.m. Meanwhile Eisenhower would meet at 8:30 a.m. with legislative leaders, explaining in detail his reasons for this response to Senator McCarthy's demand that presidential advisers be subpoenaed. "I will not allow people around me to be subpoenaed," Eisenhower told them, "and you might just as well know it now" (Hagerty, Diary, p. 53; May 17, 1954, AWF/LM; Ewald, Who Killed Joe McCarthy?, pp. 354-57).

A copy of this letter was given to Counselor for the Army John G. Adams, who, when called to the stand at the May 17 morning session of the Army-McCarthy hearings, would read it into the record. Only three days earlier (May 14) Adams had refused to give further testimony regarding a high-level White House meeting in January--on instructions, he said, from the Department of Defense (see no. 874). By invoking the doctrine of executive privilege, Eisenhower effectively blocked Senator McCarthy's plan to develop a case against the Administration. The committee would abruptly decide to recess the hearings until May 24 (see U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Government Operations, Special Subcommittee on Investigations, Hearings on Special Senate Investigation on Charges and Countercharges Involving: Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens, John G. Adams, H. Struve Hensel and Senator Joe McCarthy, Roy M. Cohn, and Francis P. Carr, 83d Cong., 2d sess. [Washington, 1954], pp. 1169-72, 1248-49; New York Times, May 15, 18, 19, 1954; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 328; Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency, pp. 204-5; and the President's news conference of May 19, 1954, Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1954, pp. 489-97; see also in these volumes, nos. 866, 869, 883).

2 Attorney General Brownell's memorandum, prepared in the Department of Justice, cited precedents for the presidential right to withhold information (see William P. Rogers to Eisenhower; memorandums "Power and Authority of the President of the United States to Withold Information Relating to the Executive Branch of Government from Congressional Committees," and "Right of Congressional Committees to Demand and Receive Information and Papers from the President and the Heads of Executive Departments which are Deemed Confidential or the Disclosure of which is Determined to be Incompatible with the Public Interest," Mar. 2, 1954, AWF/A: Brownell Corr.). Brownell's extensive and widely published documents recounted a history of decisions in the administrations of American presidents in which the principle of executive privilege had been invoked (see U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Government Operations, Special Subcommittee on Investigations, Hearings, May 17, 1954, pp. 1269-75; New York Times, May 18, 1954; see also Herman Wolkinson, "Demands of Congressional Committees for Executive Papers," Federal Bar Journal X (1949), 103-50; and Berger, Executive Privilege, pp. 375-76, 385).

3 For developments see nos. 1179 and 1187.

Bibliographic reference to this document:
Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Charles Erwin Wilson, 17 May 1954. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 879. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/879.cfm

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